The Government's Cruel Tax on the Dead

President Ronald Reagan famously said the government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few words.  "If it moves, tax it," he laughed.  But he could have added, Washington's insatiable appetite for Americans' money includes taxing things that don't budge, such as dead people.

Your government, not content with emptying your pockets while you are still breathing, uses its greedy hands to seize a large portion of your life's savings and other property after the undertaker has lowered your corpse into the earth.

Appropriately, this form of confiscation is known as the death tax. However, the government prefers to euphemistically refer to it as an estate tax because it promotes the idea that the levy applies only to grand mansions and obscene fortunes.

For that reason, many Americans never worry about this odious tax. They erroneously assume it only impacts those rich fat cats Democrats love to demagogue.  The dirty little secret is that the death tax's grisly tentacles touch far more farmers, ranchers and small business owners than the wealthy.

First, a history lesson is in order.  A form of the death tax was collected as far back as 1797 on bequests left by individuals.  It ranged from 25 cents to $100, depending on the size of the inheritance.  The tax was repealed in 1802 and reinstated and abolished over the decades.

The modern death tax was enacted in 1916.  Currently, individuals with estates worth more than $5.43 million, or couples with $10.87 million in assets, are socked with a 40 percent tax. Additionally, 19 states, plus the District of Columbia, double dip, assessing their own death tax.

Democrats claim this is some form of social justice.  Nonsense.  This is nothing more than a way to punish the successful, while stoking animosity and envy toward the wealthy.  No amount of justification for the tax, however, changes the reality that most super rich avoid paying the levy.

Those with means use a range of legal gambits to circumvent the death tax.  Armed with accountants, lawyers and financial advisers, they use insurance policies, gift transfers, complex trusts and tax free investments to enable them to pass on their wealth to their families and charities.

That's the irony of the death tax.  Democrat propaganda is aimed at convincing the uniformed and their sheep-like followers that anyone opposed to the tax is looking out for the evil rich, not the middle class. The facts, of course, offer a totally different picture.  

It is hard-working entrepreneurs, dedicated farmers, risk-taking small business owners and dogged ranchers who are hit the hardest.  They have spent their entire lives building businesses for their offspring to operate at their death, only to find out the government snatches 40 percent of it.

As a result, their children and grandchildren are forced to sell off hefty chunks of the inheritance just to pay the bloodthirsty Internal Revenue Service.  In the end, they are left with a shell of the original land or business.  More often, their only option is to get rid of the entire inherited estate.

The death tax issue looms large on the radar in states like North Dakota and Texas, where drilling for shale oil has suddenly propelled the value of rural farms.  What was once fallow farm land, is worth millions of dollars.  That is creating worries for farmers who want to leave their land to their families.
 
For once, a few in Washington appear to be attuned to their plight.  In April, the House of Representatives approved a bill to repeal the death tax, which has generated $269 billion over the last 10 years.  It was approved on a vote of 240-179, largely along party lines.

Naturally, President Obama acrimoniously accused Republicans of catering to the wealthy by eliminating the tax.  The narcissistic president couldn't resist adding , "I don't need a tax cut."  Well, the rest of us don't live rent-free in a mansion, fly on government aircraft and have a personal chef.

Despite the House vote, the death tax repeal faces an uncertain future in the Senate.  At last count, there were 53 Senators who supported the legislation.  Seven more are needed to get the law changed.

No family should have to visit the undertaker and the tax collector on the same day.  Make your voice heard on this issue before it's too late. One day your children, grandchildren or even great grandchildren will thank you for your foresight.